Creative Columns #3: Beam Me Up, Scotty!
this month a revolutionary step was made in the field of teleportation: professor eugene polzik and his team at the niels bohr institute at copenhagen university in denmark successfully transported information from one macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms to another, located half a meter away. The technique involved the use of quantum entanglement, quantum measurement and quantum feedback. the first successful completion of the three necessary steps to achieve a complete teleportation.
now i can continue this exiting news with a explanation on these quantum-like happenings but after last months creative column i thought it would be time for something “light†to digest, and i’m not in the mood for quantum mechanics today.
so it is time for us to explore the wonderful world of all that teleportation can bring us!
i for one, and possibly many others of you, have wished for the means of teleportation. the ability to transport yourself, or any other object, in an instant to another location, no matter the distance, is on the top of my wish-list for christmas each year.
alas, for some reason santa is not too hot on the quantum-based products, or his little elves need to be educated in the higher principles of quantum mechanics. my last attempt in asking for a teleportation device did not work out that well; santa got me this thing called a microwave. disillusioned as i was at that age of 7, i tried to teleport my guinea-pig. i was unable to tell where my guinea-pig went, but the red liquid residue which covered the inside of my microwave after the small explosion was not very stimulating for future attempts.
but what would we be dealing with as a product? it can be assumed that such a transportation apparatus would manifest itself as some sort of doorway. a doorway with an entry and exit point in different locations [something like the one from stargate sans the annoyingly bulky and in-comprehensive dial-in interface. i like the water-doorway-effect though]. so this technique limits us to the use of these not-so portable doorways. but then again; one door for each house bringing us to any other door is enough, so who needs portability?
a very positive effect of these kind of creations are their consequences to our world: places could get less crowded, roads can be replaced by footpaths, we can walk outside again without spontaneously getting cancer by all the carbon monoxide, you figure out the rest. the world will become a quieter and better place. wait, not better, that’s an illusion, call it less-polluted.
we will not need cars, airplanes, ships or any other this-will-eventually-fuck-up-the-ozone layer kind of transportation. every transfer will take mere seconds: i pay for my new ipod by wiring some money or credits via a portal and seconds later my new ipod arrives [assuming it’s in stock. if not; the wait time would be extended with another minute]. and this could be just as simple when buying a new car. oh wait, we wouldn’t need cars, never mind. i guess you get the point by now.
already i see the fun part. think about simple games such as hide and seek; a great way to get rid of the kids [or lose them forever]. how about sports? talk about adding dimensions! this technology is really something to brainstorm about [insert brilliant innovation here…].
but we are also desperately going to need some locks for those doors. cause you might just find your entire house emptied one morning, or worse; filled with something really inappropriate [catch my drift?]. or the victim of the biggest terrorist attack in history; i don’t know about you, but waking up next to a nuclear warhead ticking away its final seconds is without a doubt not on my annual christmas wish-list.
i do hope that such a complicated technology will not be based on any microsoft software. not that i don’t like them [cough, cough], it’s just that their software isn’t the most bug-free out there and i just don’t want to find myself teleported into a rock or tree [”0×0000000c7b - a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your teleporter - 0×0000395b8c”, good luck getting yourself safely out of that one!]
but if these programmers would have some spare time on their hands i would like them to add a shuffle-feature. teleporting yourself to a random location on this planet, or any other, would truly be something against your boredom, way better than the random article button at wikipedia! i will be entertained until the end of [my] time…
well enough of my input for now. i am off, dreaming about teleportation. i leave you with some material to contemplate. what would you do with the ability of teleportation and what are your thoughts? comment away dear reader and fuel this discussion once more. i dare you: who comes up with the weirdest application?
pssst, don’t tell the already brainstorming readers out there, but i forgot to mention this small revolution will most likely not see any adoption of human teleportation in the near future. it’s just not feasible yet. but if we all stand together strong and donate generously to: 1-800 TELEPORTMYASS, we can give these guys big bags stuffed with cash to ensure this technology sees the light of day before we don’t. think about all that money wasted on fuel, tickets, taxes and many more…
invest in the future, people! be smart and invest!
jan van der asdonk is a contributor to studio469 in the shape of his creative spamming, manifesting itself in the somewhat distorted views and theories of the world around him. feedback, topic requests and fan mail are all very welcome at jan@studio469.com
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November 1st, 2006 at 23:16
damn. teleportation would kick ass: never having to ride my bike in shitty weather, driving against the wind, drying clothes on the central heating at school (like i had to twice this week) ever again. heavy security would be a necessity, but it would make life a lot easier and more fun i guess:).
nice column again!
November 2nd, 2006 at 0:13
oooo i would love to get a pair of teleportation of to my house. how lovely would it be…. sitting in the bar all night long, your wifes calls you: WHERE ARE YOU? well at home honey, i was working in the garden…. BLEEP… coming to think of this, my smart-ass wife would have this feminin instinct that knows i’m drinking and BLEEPS her ass over to check out the things i do… DAMN…. okay we can work with this problem out. dont know how, but i’m sure we can.
Next great thing about teleportation, being able to snowboard everyday one hour after work!!! COOL….
unfortunately i wasn’t the only one…….
I really wish I would just get one for myself, just for me and my small secret clan with doors around the world…
Great column by the way!!!
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:42
Teleportation, that would be super nice, but then the problem would be to keep it secret, since the coolness-index (C.I.) will drop according to the number of users. What I’m trying to say is, if teleportation is possible, which I don’t doubt at all, how would we know, who would want to share such a cool feature, or apparatus, with the rest of the world. The advantage of being at two places at once, or in the blink of an eye, is gone when everyone has access to these teleports. So I was doing some research just now, and I found a company by the name of T-Port inc., which is apparently owned by some kind of wacky professor by the name of E. Polzik, but of course I dug deeper to find that this T-port company is actually owned by the C.I.A. now doesn’t that make sense…
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:51
cia? crap, those guys never get off my back! we might wanna cool this down a bit, cause it’s not like they’re my biggest fans. but hey, that’s what you get when publishing government secrets…
maybe the next column will be more c.i.a.-friendly…woops gotta go hide, red laser dots are flying all over the room now…
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:55
Oh man, this really gets my fantasy started. What if some crazy guy was to put two of those portals horizontal, and put one on those on the floor, and one 1km up in the air, this would give you the worlds largest freefall! Or even better, people always talking about tunneling to China, you could do it! Get yourself a ladder, put a portal on the floor, ask your Chinese friend to put one on the ground too, jump in, and keep falling up and down till you get tired of it.
Ok, ok one more. Get a big ladder, put one portal on the floor, connect it to two standing up ones, if you go fast enough, you could travel horizontaly to the next one… Ok, I wont let you share any more of my creative energy for today. You probably couldn’t stumach it…
Anyway, I think we need to find more uses out of this technology than only transportation, I’m talking free energy. What if we create some of those gates to get some kinetic energy into sea-water or whatever, you could have all the energy you need. But this will only be true if you get more energy out of this than you need, back to you mr Newton
November 3rd, 2006 at 14:07
This is you’re first column I really liked, the other ones were ok, this one is coollll. Teleportation huh, would make my paper rounds a lot easier
But then I’ll probably get teleportation-sickness or something. Would there be something like a teleportation-allergy? Some allergy that would teleportate random parts of your body, hmm funny (not really). Speaking of the CIA, I can only hope that they (or any other stupid American gouvernment agency) get their hands on it, cause they would only use it for evil, like they do with everything else they touch. They are evil, people: THE U.S. ARE EVIL GROARRRRR !@$!) ))!@# !@$)(!@NJMPO!@$…………… (Mum): Sorry guys, we had to put Mathijs back in his cage, he has a very agressive form of U.S. fobia. Later.
November 7th, 2006 at 2:12
I see a lot of business opportunities here, new markets opening up. Just thinking of some products one could produce in the line of Teleportation:
- Teleporter Entrance, you enter to pop out at any exit of your desire
- Teleporter Exit, allows you to exit after using the Teleporter Entrance
- Teleporter Combi, the entrance & exit in one
- Teleporter Deluxe, faster teleport, less headaches
- Teleporter Wi-Fi, go anywhere wireless
- Instant Teleport, a pre-paid based version, allows you to teleport at any time
- Teleport-UPS-service, the simple door to door service from UPS
- Tele-phone, whenever you get a call you can meet the person face to face
- Telestorage, have an extra storage to your disposal
- Tele-office, share an office with your colleagues, somewhere in the middle nowhere
- My-tele-spaces, have shared spaces with your friends
did I forget anything?
November 7th, 2006 at 13:36
awesome brain, i’ll go right ahead an patent all of those right now!
November 8th, 2006 at 4:46
We’ll just share 50-50 no problem.
December 18th, 2006 at 13:08
[…] And that’s just what happened to me 2 months ago. Within 15 minutes I walked straight into my new life. (have to admit I actually did make some adjustments to look better on screen) Well there ‘I’ was, at the gates of the ‘Promised Land’, looking quite happy with my second ‘me’. (For those of you who tuned in later… I’m not schizophrenic, there really is a second ‘me’, for 15 minutes) And at this playground just before the gates to the ‘promised land’ I had my first moment of doubt. Walking there I could only think of one song: “If everybody looked the same†by Groove Armada. We’d get tired of looking at each other, is how the song continues, and that’s just how I felt. I have never felt like this in my whole life, and now in my new, so called, second life it only took me 20 minutes. (15 minutes plastic surgery included) However all first steps are difficult, so I continued and I teleported (yeah Jan, I already made it so far ) myself to the ‘real (second) world’ aka ‘the Promised Land’. […]
November 9th, 2007 at 15:32
[…] a year ago i talked about advancements in the field of teleportation. new technological developments always get my neurons firing. so in search for some scientific […]